The magazine on Wednesday released its annual Forbes 400 list of the richest people in America, topped as usual by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, with a net worth of $54 billion, and Berkshire Hathaway’s Warren Buffett at $45 billion.

But Zuckerberg’s net worth jumped by $4.9 billion in the past year, based on private equity deals that place the value of the Palo Alto company he co-founded at about $23 billion.

In the Bay Area, the only people ahead of Zuckerberg were Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, 66, who was number 3 overall at $27 billion, and Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, both 37, who tied for 11th place with $15 billion.

Zuckerberg leaped ahead of Apple’s 55-year-old CEO, who was number 42 on the list with $6.1 billion. Jobs’ total was boosted by the $4.4 billion in Walt Disney Co. stock he acquired in the sale of Emeryville’s Pixar Animation Studios, according to Forbes’ Stephen Bertoni.

At 26, Zuckerberg is one of the two youngest billionaires on the list – Harvard roommate and Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz, 26, came in at number 290 with $1.4 billion.

Movie fans will be seeing Hollywood’s reportedly unfavorable version of how Zuckerberg, Moskovitz and Eduardo Saverin (number 356 on the Forbes list with $1.15 billion) founded Facebook six years ago in the upcoming movie “The Social Network,” which hits theaters Oct. 1.

Then again, the Facebook CEO is reportedly set to go on Oprah on Friday to announce he is donating $100 million to help the troubled Newark, N.J., school system.